


Baby Steps

by HanEunSeom



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I just know that I had fun writing, I mean.... I don't know what else to tag this with, Instagram, M/M, Please Don't Kill Me, Revelations, Showki, So yeah, Social Media, Strangers, Taking care of a baby, because it is cute, i don't know how to tag, parenting, this is just cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 20:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11494239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HanEunSeom/pseuds/HanEunSeom
Summary: Kihyun suddenly finds out he has a baby brother and has to take care of him one unfortunate day.However, the student doesn't have any idea of the basics and in his desperation, he ends up in an Instagram live of an account called 'shownuhelpswithbabies' pleading for help.





	Baby Steps

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for showki.

“I’m sorry I never said anything before, son,” I just couldn’t believe in what he was saying to me. “I was... waiting for the right time to tell you and I didn’t want to worry you while you were in the midst of your college exams... I hope you understand.”

My hands tightened around my cup of coffee. “Is this really true?” My dear father - who was long divorced from my mother - had just told me he not only had a wife but also a kid with her. A six months old baby. “You are not messing around?” So, you have to pardon me if I kept asking the same thing, because this is not something you usually think of finding out when your dad calls you and invites you for an innocent coffee downtown.

“I’m not,” he didn’t sound nervous, but I could see his hands shaking. I wanted to laugh; I mean, he had some shame after all. “His- his name is Sunyoul,” he completed and I could see a faint smile on his stern face. I hid well my surprise, I think, or he just didn’t pay attention to it. “You’ll love him, I swear, he is one of the calmests babies I ever met and Jung Eum is so excited to see you…”

His voice trailed off when he saw my painful expression; maybe I couldn’t hide it so well, after all. “Yeah, dad, I can see how excited you are about all of this. Just enlighten me on why are you telling me this now; why is it now the right time?” _Maybe you should have never told me at all._

“Jung Eum said it was wrong for me to hide it…” oh, great, now his freaking wife made him do what was supposed to be done in the first fucking place. “And maybe I told her that I had told you a month ago about everything and now she was pestering me too much-”

“So you lied to your wife and because you couldn’t drag this anymore, you decided to finally tell me.”

“Well, when you put it like that it sounds a lot worse than it really is.”

What had I done to God to deserve such a thing? My father literally just dropped that on me in the middle of one of my favorite coffee shops only to reveal that he was there because he couldn’t lie to his wife anymore. And **my** way of putting things was just dramatizing it; how could I not see that? Silly me. “When I’m going to meet the Clampetts?”

“That’s a pretty old reference, son,” he gave a half-hearted smile and he looked like he wanted to spontaneously combust. “But, uh, what do you think about Sunday?”

***

I met them on Sunday and it was not the worst experience of my life. In fact, I can’t really classified what it was. Maybe ‘confusing’ is a good word, but ‘awkward’ would be just perfect.

Lee Jung Eum was a nice woman, as I found out after some minutes of awkward conversation - she really tried to make things less weird between the three of us and I appreciated the effort - , she was really bright and cheerful, which deeply contrasted with my father’s gloomy personality. She had the baby in her arms when I entered their apartment (they bought it around a year ago as it seems) and it hit hard my emo face the way the chubby baby wiggled his arms adorably in my direction yelling random baby noises almost like he wanted to go with me.

I almost choked to death when she actually straightened her arms and gave the kid to me.

“Uh, I don’t- I don’t know how to-”

“Don’t be silly,” she said and gave that little thing to me. I carefully got him between my big hands and Jung Eum laughed, “he is not a bomb, Kihyun, everything is fine. Besides, he clearly likes you.”

I was not so sure of that. But I held my tongue back and I brought the baby closer to me when he kept opening and closing his small hands, trying to grab the air or whatever it goes through the minds of babies. “Talk to him,” she said with a smile and guided me and my awkward father inside of the place. “He laughs a lot so anything you say will probably get him giggling all over you.”

My eyes focused on his chubby face and an irrational desire to squeeze those cheeks took over me, and, if I wasn’t already holding that baby with both of my arms, I probably would have done that. However, even though his cuteness was practically making my logical thinking level drop to zero, I was not ready to do a high voice and say stuff like ‘where’s the baby’; that was just asking too much. “Hi,” I voiced in my normal tone. “Sunyoul was it?”

And I was done for; that damn baby let out the cutest laugh ever and all my anger and sadness melted away when he just leaned forward and wrapped my neck with his chubby short arms. “Oh,” I let out trying to not freak out and Jung Eum winked.

Father was visibly more relaxed at the sight of his twenty-year-old son holding awkwardly his six-month-old baby. I can’t say I was a hundred percent happy with the situation, but it wasn’t that horrible. My mother and I had had a lot of worse moments and none of them involved this level of seriousness. It was still awkward - the whole lunch I mean - but the cute baby sounds Sunyoul made lightened the mood a lot, so I was thankful he was such a sympathetic baby. I hoped he could have a better childhood.

I truly wished him the best life, I just didn’t think I would have to actively participate on it.

 

 _“Kihyun, please, Jung Eum is dead on the bed and I’m so freaking exhausted... please,”_ I had never heard my father beg for anything, even when my mother threw his things off the window and locked him outside. _“Sunyoul’s babysitter will be gone in an hour and I just can’t get to Seoul so quickly- please, it’s just one night. I promise we will be there at seven am tops.”_

I wanted to ask my father why he had a baby when he was so old already, but I kept the question to myself. Anyway, I couldn’t possibly say no to that. I couldn’t leave him alone in that house even though I had no knowledge about how to take care of a baby whatsoever. “Fine, I’m heading to the apartment.”

_“Thanks, son, I appreciate it. You can get the keys from the babysitter, I already talked to her that you’ll be meeting her soon.”_

_Oh, awesome; he already knew I would agree because I’m that predictable._ “Bye, dad.”

It took me twenty minutes to get to the pretty building complex in which they lived. I had to give all my information to the doorsman since he didn't recognize me; in five more minutes I was inside the apartment looking at a sleeping Sunyoul and a very tired girl. “You are his big brother?” her voice was so weak that I could swear she would faint at any moment. I nodded yes and she sighed in pure relief. “He just slept, so be careful, alright? I'm going home now.”

And just like that she put the baby in my arms and left.

“Well,” I whispered. “I should, uh, put you in your crib?”

It was more than terrifying the twenty meters walk from the living room to his room - filled with blue stamps on the walls and cute other… baby things or whatever - with him asleep on my arms. _How can a human being be so small?_ But it was kind of fine after I laid Sunyoul on the crib. He kept sleeping at least; that was a huge thing already. I observed him for some seconds and thought that maybe the night wouldn't be so bad.

I went to the living room, sat on the sofa and got my laptop to work on the photographies of my project. My teacher had liked my previous work and I just figured I had to do something in the same level or better. However, my classmate, Hyungwon went to a party with his new boyfriend and didn't do any of the editions we had talk about. “Gonna have to pull an all-nighter it seems,” I murmured. “Better start soon.”

I'm a student of Photography; just on my last year. I love my course, so being able to graduate (in a few months!) is like a dream coming true. I never thought I could ever get something I wanted, but now I see that my hard work really did the difference. Spending hours taking pictures and then hours editing, selecting and deleting may not seem like the most fun thing in the world, but to me it is. I'm lucky I found Hyungwon that has the same passion and actually helps. A lot of people seem like they are just in the college to goof around and I don't know what I would have done if my partner was like that.

I'm really grateful to him, he does a lot… however, as much as he loves photography, he loves fashion events and especially the after parties. That always lead him to extreme hangovers and the following day of pure inutility. He had already texted me saying he was sorry and that he wanted to but couldn't cancel his date. He even told me that he could do extra work tomorrow, but I know that _that_ isn't happening. He is probably going to sleep the whole day just to wake up in the night whimpering for painkillers.

Therefore I’m going to spend the night awake doing both of our jobs. Besides, I don't feel comfortable sleeping with a baby so close to me and no one awake to take care of him.

I started working on my photographs and on Hyungwon’s part, not really paying attention to my surroundings. I did all the basic stuff and it was already midnight when I decided to take a break and put something in my poor empty stomach.

As soon as I got to the kitchen a loud cry broke the peaceful silence of the apartment. Quickly, I ran to Sunyoul’s room and turned on the lights to see what the hell got that baby screaming so much. “Sunyoul?” I went to his crib and tried to get his soft, practically boneless body without dropping him on the floor. “W-what's wrong?”

And he just didn't stop crying. How could that happy baby from some weeks earlier cry so much? _He's a baby, crying is almost his job, asshat._ “Oh, shoosh, everything is fine-” desperation was more than apparent on my voice. “Are… are you hungry? Is that it? It's fine, I can get you, uh, milk? That's what babies drink, right?”

Just like he could understand my words, he cried even harder; probably displeased with my slow rhythm in fulfilling his demands. “Ok, geez, calm down,” I said and walked to the kitchen, putting him on that especial chair-thing for babies and, Lord, how could something so small be so strong? I had to hold the furniture or else he would turn that thing over.

Well, I had an objective now: prepare milk for the little brother. Only problem was that I didn't know how to. Imagine a person wanting to scream out his lungs? That's me... and I wanted to cry too. “Oh, fuck!” I said and hurriedly got my phone to search how to do baby bottles, but, guess what, there was no simple written recipe and my desperate brain was not assimilating all that fluffy decoration of mother's sites. “I'm trying my best here!” I yelled when he tried to get out of his place, “so please, cooperate, ok?”

 _How can the fucking internet be so useless now!_ Since I just don't use any social media besides Instagram, I though maybe there's something helpful in one of those trillion accounts. I know how this sounds, but, again, you will have to pardon me, but this is not a situation to which I prepared for.

Sunyoul’s little hands hit the plastic table hard enough to make me whimper and the thought that I was terrified by a _baby_ didn't even occur to me; I just really wanted to make him stop crying.

That's when I found this small account ( _shownuhelpswithbabies)_ that was having a live right there. I thought that couldn't be better, after all, I could ask this person how to do it and if I was lucky, they would just tell me right away. I clicked on the little icon and entered the live.

_“Huh? A viewer?”_

“You have a very low voice,” I said when I heard _his_ voice. The screen was black like he was blocking it, not that it mattered. Then I noticed that he could not hear my voice and I quickly typed (maybe Sunyoul’s cries were like fuel to my thin fingers) ‘hi, sorry for the random question, but, uh, could you tell me how to prepare a baby bottle?’

" _Baby bottle?”_ the man sounded young, but I wasn't quite worried about that now. _“Yeah, sure, uh, I can help with that. Just follow what I say.”_

I know that maybe the whole situation was just too weird (it was midnight, I was the only viewer in that live and he would teach me how to prepare milk for a baby), but the man promptly told me what I had to do and I followed each step religiously. ‘Okay, so I just have to give it to him, now?’

_"Yeah, just give it to him. Careful to not make him choke or anything. I mean, how old is he?”_

‘Six months or something like that. Maybe older. Why? Does this change anything?!’

I put the cell phone on the table and got Sunyoul on my arms waiting anxiously for his answer. The man just giggled and I tried to make Sunyoul accept the baby bottle. _“No, it doesn't. I just wanted to make sure because this is kind of weird.”_

“Well, I'm following a dude that calls himself _Shownu_ and I ain't complaining about weirdness,” I muttered and it took me three whole minutes of deep struggle against chubby baby arms to realise that hunger was not his problem. “Oh my fucking God-”

‘Shownu HE JUST DOESN'T STOP CRYING. HE ISN'T HUNGRY WHAT DO I DO’ I typed furiously and I heard a faint series of giggles ‘DON'T LAUGH. I'M FUCKING SERIOUS HERE.’

 _"Woah, dude, calm down,”_ he said with a smile on his voice. _“Did you check his diaper?”_

The world seemed to stop and I looked at the baby who was moving like a gigantic worm in my arms. ‘No’ I typed and I tried to not think that was that problem; it couldn't be. No, no, no. _“Then, it can be that, or cramps, which is pretty worse.”_

I loudly groaned, ‘do not leave,’ I sent to him and he hummed in agreement. I brought my phone and a crying Sunyoul to his changing table on his bedroom and I laid him down carefully. “Oh, please,” I whispered; and if there was something like scores between me and the diapers, the latter would certainly be kicking my ass. Those freaking tapes just _didn't come off._ “Baby, please, stop wiggling,” I whimpered and after two minutes of intense fighting I managed to open it.

Yes. That was the problem. _“Everything fine there?”_ Surely, not. ‘How the hell do I change a diaper without killing him or myself?’

" _Oh, damn,”_ he had a low laugh and it was strangely calming after all of had just happened. _“I'll try my best to guide you.”_

I nodded even though he couldn't possibly see me.

“Okay, baby. The only thing I know how to handle is a camera and diapers are very distant from that, so, please bear with me,” Sunyoul gave me a curious look between his sobs.

_“Ready?”_

‘Yes.’

 

***

 

That was a pretty long hour.

Shownu kept giving me instructions and after I was covered in piss (because it looks like babies can’t control their bladder) and changed Sunyoul, he finally stopped crying. The man on the live said it would be nice to sing to him or just hold him in my arms until he slept and though I wasn’t very fond of the idea, I did both. It took twenty more minutes and it was one am when that kid finally slept. I typed to Shownu that I would wash my face and he laughed again. _What a nice laugh,_ I thought while I took off my shirt and washed my face with soap.

 _“Are you okay?”_ he said after a while and I told him I was fine and very grateful for his help. _“That’s fine,_ _no need to thank me. This account is actually my sister's and I just wanted to use it to see some of the new Instagram features when you appeared on the live I was doing just to play around.”_

‘Wait, you actually don’t call yourself Shownu?’ He laughed again and I went to the sofa, throwing myself on it. _“No, that’s my sister’s teddy bear’s name. I’m actually called Hyunwoo.”_

I smiled tiredly. ‘Well, thanks anyway, Hyunwoo. I don’t know what I would’ve done without your guidance.’

_“Don’t sweat it. I know how to handle babies well since I took care of my little sister when she was a baby too. I guess I just grew used to it. I’m happy I could help you…”_

‘Kihyun and my story is really crazy dude. I’m like, taking care of my little brother too, but actually I didn’t even know my father had a wife,’ I typed and later I would be surprised how I had just spilled that out to a complete stranger. _“What? How is that?”_ And I seriously don’t know how I just told my whole story to him.

But long story short… we talked pretty much the whole night and in the end he gave me his cellphone number in case I needed anymore help since it was three am and he had to go to sleep and probably wouldn’t enter in that account anymore. ‘I hope I didn’t traumatize you.’

 _“No, man, I had a really bad day actually and hanging out with you was a lot of fun. Especially after you stopped being so desperate. You can be a nice guy if you are not freaking out,”_ he laughed again and even though I wanted to be angry, I just smirked. _“Anyway… I guess, I’ll see you around?”_

‘Yes, talk to you later.’

 _“Okay, talk to you later,”_ he had a smile on his voice.

 

In the morning, I sent him a message on LINE. I needed help with changing him again and giving him a bath (my father only arrive after lunch) and we actually talked a lot more on voice call about other stuff not related to babies. I found talking with Hyunwoo incredibly relaxing and eventually I asked why he had a bad day.

He told me that even though his story wasn’t as crazy as mine, he was still pretty confused about it: his mother was leaving home with another man and she wanted to take his little sister, Hyewon, with her. Hyunwoo didn’t live with them anymore and was on college (music major, he told me), but was helping his father take care of Hyewon while his mother was trying to find lawyers to get the girl’s guard.

We found out that we both lived in Seoul and after two weeks talking, we met each other on the same coffee shop my dad had told me everything.

Son Hyunwoo was nice and his eyes were small; he reminded me of a teddy bear due to his body shape and I called him ‘Shownu’ sometimes. He blushed and I just found it so freaking endearing; my heart even raced and my desire to meet him grew more and more each day.

Hyungwon even suggested I was _in love_ , but that was obviously not the case.

I mean, it’s not because I love to talk to him, I love to see his smile and to hear his laugh, I love to hear his problem and I worry about him… it’s not because I do all of those things that it means I want anything more than just pure _friendship._

 

“Yes, sure.” Hyungwon slowly put his straw on his mouth and sucked his ice tea. “Keep telling yourself that and it will only be worse. I’m warning you.”

“Stop bringing this subject back,” I rolled my eyes, “why don’t we both focus on these photos? We are in the middle of what was supposed to be a _meeting._ ” I told him while we were both sitting in my apartment’s floor. Maybe it was a very informal meeting, but I still wanted to get it done.

“Fine,” he said and pointed at one, “the green of this one is too bright…”

I smiled. “Oh, it reminds me that Hyunwoo brought another one of those…” my eyes went up to see my friend’s face and his expression shut me up.

“You are _so in love-”_

“No, I’m not!”

Suddenly, my phone made a faint _beep_. I looked at my screen and a smile crept in my face. “It’s him, isn’t it?” Hyungwon said and made a disgusted noise, “I’m not paid enough to see this.”

My heart beated a little faster when I opened his text. ‘Hey, Kihyun… I was thinking… don’t you want to see a movie with me today?’

“What is he saying?” Hyungwon asked me and leaned forward to see the text, but, instinctively, I turned the phone down and my friend frowned deeply before giving me a smirk. “Kihyun… what is it?”

“No-”

Before I could even finish, he took the phone out of my hand (he is just too tall for me, dammit) and arched an eyebrow while he stood up. I promptly got on my feet and tried to take the phone back. “Not so soon,” he said and I swear that the way he started to type in my place could’ve gotten me dead. “Calm down!” he said when I started screaming that I wanted my phone back. “Here, you lunatic.”

Quickly, I looked at my screen and gasped loudly. “I just did you the favor of your life,” he smirked.

He had asked Hyunwoo if it was a date.

 

And he said ‘yes’.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked ;u; leave kudos if you did ^^
> 
>  
> 
> ps.: English is not my first language so I apologize for any hideous grammar mistakes ;;


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